The Internet is still burning over how DC treated Gail Simone last week and through that smoke and haze the comic publisher has announced who will be filling in for her and a few other changes. Click that button for more details.

First up is Batgirl. We all know that Gail Simone will no longer be writing the series so who will be filling that role? No permanent replacement has been announced, but Gail did take to Twitter to say this:

I have heard NOTHING BUT GREAT things about @rayfawkes, who is doing issues 17&18 of Batgirl. I wish him every possible success.

Gail might be a month off though seeing that the March DC solicits say that issue 18 will be the start of Fawkes’ two issue gig. With only two issues I wouldn’t look for Fawkes to have any lasting direction on the title. With those issues being about Barbara’s story wrap-up from “Death of the Family” event odds are that they have already been plotted out for Fawkes.

The next change up that we have for you is that Jim Starlin is set to take over a yet unnamed title. The long time creator took to Facebook to make the announcement.

I have just completed scripting the first two issues of an on-going series for DC Comics. Can’t say what the title is until DC wants the news out. But I imagine a lot of people will be quite surprised to see me take over the writing chores on this particular property. Been having a (surprisingly) fun time with it so far. It’s a title I have never before had anything to do with, really from out in left field. Shouldn’t be too long before DC Comics makes the announcement. I believe my issues begin in April.

And finally we end on a partial rumor from Bleeding Cool. Rich Johnston is reporting that Scott Snyder will be leaving Swamp Thing in the coming months. Looking at the March solicits again will show us that Snyder is scheduled on the book at least through then. BUT issue 18 is the final issue in the Rotworld event and would make for a clean break from the series. With Snyder heading up Batman, writing the upcoming Jim Lee Superman collaboration, American Vampire, and another upcoming creator-owned project his departure on Swamp Thing wouldn’t be that big of a surprise.

Oh, issue 19 of Swamp Thing is set to come out in April. Jim Starlin taking it over perhaps?

UPDATE: Scott Snyder confirms on Twitter that Swamp Thing #18 will be his last issue.

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Zach is a recent college graduate who’s love for consuming media is surpassed only by his love for creating it. He has a firm belief that if we could all just play with LEGOs for 30 minutes a day the world would be a better place. If those two statements don’t tell you everything you need to know about Zach, follow him on Twitter at @zwoof.

Gail was fired (somewhat ungraciously, by the sound of it) from Batgirl. Lot of stuff about it on Twitter and elsewhere. But it sounds like she’s got plenty of other stuff coming down the pipe, creator-owned as well as from DC. I hope she can do some Marvel stuff soon too.

I find this all very unfortunate. For the last semester, I’ve actually been in a class called “Disabilities in Pop Culture” and I’ve been researching Batgirl/Barbara Gordon for it. I tried to create a comic of my own for my final project that explained why Simone was such an important person to be writing the Batgirl books, which you all can read here if anyone wants – http://itsabrewworld.wordpress.com/who-is-batgirl/

I think (despite some of the criticism by the disabled community since Barbara’s character change) that what really helped Simone treat the character with care was her own connection to the character as a woman, a redhead, and an over-all, personal fan. I think it will be difficult for a male writer–let alone, an able-bodied one– to do Barbara the same justice (although not impossible, and I’m certainly looking forward to being proved wrong).